With the globalization of equestrian sports and the incredible amount of traveling some grooms do, the main language among grooms who travel the globe seems to be English. Something that hasn’t morphed into one international or global system is the way different countries measure the height of horses and ponies.
Different Measuring Systems
Different countries measure horses according to different measurement systems. For grooms from mainland Europe, this can raise questions when they go to the U.S. or the U.K. for a couple of horse shows and vice versa. Also, grooms from Down Under (Australia and New Zealand) coming to work in Europe need to get used to a different measuring system.
Hands and Inches Versus The Metric System
The main way of measuring horses and ponies in the U.K., Ireland, the U.S., Canada, India, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand is in hands and inches, while in Europe, horses get measured following the metric system, so in meters and centimeters. The official measurement system of the International Equestrian Federation, the FEI, is the metric one.
Horse Heights Conversion Chart
It might be helpful to know how the different systems compare to each other. Therefore, we made you a simple conversion chart with horse heights using different horse measuring systems. You can download the chart here.
Hands High Explained
The abbreviation for hands is hh, which comes from the term “hands high”. Often, the height is just over a number of hands, e.g. 16 hands and 2 inches, which is therefore referred to as 16.2 hh. Since there are only four inches in a hand’s width, you don’t see .4 and up since that’s a whole new hand.
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Lead picture courtesy of Arnd Bronkhorst Photography
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